Sir Leonard Valentinovich Blavatnik (born June 14, 1957) is a Ukrainian-born American-British business magnate and philanthropist. As of March 2022, Forbes listed his wealth at $35.4 billion, making him somewhere between the 20th- and 33rd-richest person in the world. In 2017, Blavatnik received a knighthood for services to philanthropy. Blavatnik made his initial fortune after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the privatization of state-owned aluminum and oil assets. He owns most of Warner Music Group and has stakes in several publicly traded assets via his privately held U.S. company Access Industries Holdings. He refers to himself as a self-made billionaire. Early life and education Blavatnik was born in 1957 in Odessa, then in the Ukrainian SSR and part of the Soviet Union, to a Jewish family. Blavatnik’s parents moved to Yaroslavl, a Russian city north of Moscow, when Blavatnik was a child. Blavatnik attended Moscow State University of Railway Engineering, but did not complete his coursework due to the family's request for emigration visas. At Moscow State University of Railway Engineering, Blavatnik became close friends with Viktor Vekselberg, another Ukrainian Jew. Vekselberg would later go on to found Renova Group His family emigrated from the Soviet Union to the United States of America in 1978, and he received a master's degree in computer science from Columbia University's School of Engineering and Applied Science in 1981 and an MBA from Harvard Business School in 1989. Career Access Industries Holdings In 1986, Blavatnik founded the holding company, Access Industries Holdings, of which he is chairman and president. The New York-based business controls 21% of LyondellBasell, the world's largest producer of polypropylene. Through Access Industries Holdings Blavatnik owns most of Warner Music Group and has stakes in several publicly traded assets. Natural Resources Sector After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Blavatnik bought up former state assets in Russia that were privatized by the government. Blavatnik began his business career by accumulating shares in aluminum smelters in the period of privatisation that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. He did this via his holding company, Access Industries. He has been described as a victor in Russia's "aluminum wars". Blavatnik made his wealth through the acquisition of these commodities. One of his investments, Sual, later became part of United Company Rusal, the world's largest aluminium producer. Blavatnik was a board member of Rusal from 2007 to 2016. The company also invested